Evaluation of signalling load in control channels for the cognitive management of opportunistic networks

This paper proposes the data structures needed for the cognitive management of operator‐governed opportunistic networks (ONs), which are coordinated extensions of the infrastructure and are created dynamically and temporarily through operator policies when they are needed. The data structures are divided in five categories: profiles, context, decision, knowledge and policy. Profile information provides information on the capabilities of devices and infrastructure elements, the characteristics of applications and the requirements and preferences of users. Contextual information comprises information regarding the current status of the terminal and the infrastructure devices as well as their environment, whereas decisions include information about the creation and (re‐)configuration of ONs, as well as information for the (re‐)configuration of infrastructure and terminals. Knowledge information focuses on the storage of the decisions made for each occurred context, whereas the policies provide rules for context handling, in terms of objectives to be achieved, strategies to be used for the optimization and constraints to be respected. The data structures are evaluated through the capacity extension scenario, where network elements exchange messages based on the IEEE 802.21 standard in order to relieve a congested base station through the ON creation that will offload a proportion of terminals to alternative base stations. For a small network, the evaluation proves that the signalling load is around 60 KB, whereas for a large network, the load is around 260 KB. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. This paper proposed the data structures needed for the cognitive management of operator‐governed opportunistic networks, which are coordinated extensions of the infrastructure and are created dynamically and temporarily through operator policies when they are needed. The data structures are divided in five categories: profiles, context, decision, knowledge and policy. The data structures are evaluated through the capacity extension scenario, where network elements exchange messages based on the IEEE 802.21 standard in order to relieve a congested base station.